From Shutter Island to American Psycho, you'll never get answers to these horror movie questions.
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00:00One of the key tenets of horror movies involves unfurling a mystery primed to get the audience's
00:05heart racing and palms sweating. And while most horror films will eventually dispense with the
00:10innuendo and unleash the big reveal, sometimes filmmakers like to hold something back and keep
00:15a secret close to their chest. So with that in mind, I'm Ellie for WhatCulture here with 10
00:19horror movie secrets they'll never tell you. 10. What was the baby made from? Eraserhead
00:26David Lynch is fiercely protective of his film's integrity, and perhaps the best-kept secret from
00:32his entire back catalogue? What the hell Eraserhead's deformed child prop was made from? In Lynch's
00:38mesmerising debut, protagonist Harry is left to care for his swaddled mutant baby, whose unique
00:43physical appearance has left many speculating about how Lynch created it ever since. Lynch hasn't ever
00:49revealed what the child was made from, and was so committed to concealing the truth that he even
00:53blindfolded the projectionist who worked on the film's dailies during editing, and also allegedly
00:58had the prop buried after shooting was completed. Over the years, Lynch has made only hilariously
01:03vague comments like, it was born nearby, or maybe it was found, while some have speculated that it was
01:09made from either a skinned rabbit or lamb fetus. While it's incredibly unlikely that Lynch used an
01:15untreated animal carcass that would decompose over the course of production, it's quite possible that
01:20he had the prop nicknamed Spike modelled from a dead animal. All the same, Lynch has managed to keep
01:25the secret alive for over 45 years, so there's no reason that he won't be able to take it to the
01:29grave with him. 9. What was real and what was a dream? American Psycho
01:35American Psycho's big ambiguity has been debated to death, namely whether or not the killings carried
01:41out by Patrick Bateman and the increasingly unhinged sights we witnessed throughout the film
01:46actually happened, or are in fact mere fabrications within his own insane mind.
01:51Director Mary Haran has spoken at length about the film and especially its ending, but she's refused
01:56to explicitly confirm what was real and what wasn't, believing that doing so would take the movie away
02:01from the audience. She did, however, tell Charlie Rose in an interview that she felt it was a failing
02:07on her part as a filmmaker that some audiences came away believing the entire movie to have been a
02:12dream. Haran added that this wasn't her intent and she wanted to end the movie on a note where it's
02:17clear that the story is a mix of reality and delusion, though has sensibly shied away from
02:22confirming which parts of the movie are which. One can reasonably suggest, though, that all of the
02:26killings basically happened, but perhaps not in the outlandish fashion that they did in the film,
02:31and by the time Bateman's trying to feed a cat to an ATM machine and blows up a cop car,
02:35it's purely in his mind.
02:378. What does After Midnight mean? Gremlins?
02:40Anyone who's seen the original Gremlins will of course remember the three crucial rules for
02:46looking after a mogwai. Don't expose it to sunlight, get it wet, or feed it after midnight.
02:51The first two rules seem simple enough, but what precisely does After Midnight mean? When in a day
02:56is it no longer After Midnight? And moreover, what if, hypothetically, you took a mogwai on a plane
03:02across time zones and fed them? What's the guidance there? Evidently, director Joe Dante and writer
03:07Christopher Columbus didn't expect audiences to spend too much time scrutinizing that rule,
03:12but in the years following the movie's release, that's basically all they did.
03:16And so, when Gremlins 2, the new batch, was finally released in 1990, Dante decided to poke a little
03:22fun at, in his estimation, over-inquisitive fans. When Clamp Tower is besieged by Gremlins,
03:28Daniel Clamp's goons ask about the plane hypothetical, and also what would happen if a mogwai
03:33accidentally swallowed a seed in its teeth from a meal eaten before midnight. But before Billy can
03:38even attempt to answer, Gremlins' stripe bursts out of a TV screen and attacks them. It's basically
03:44Dante's tongue-in-cheek way of telling the audience, stop asking for answers because I'm
03:48never giving them to you. It's brilliant!
03:51Number 7. Who is Billy? Black Christmas, 1974
03:541974's Black Christmas is something of an anomaly among the slasher genre, for despite turning a healthy
04:01profit at the box office, it never led to a sequel, just two ill-advised remakes released in 2006 and
04:072019. As such, film fans were spared the inevitability of a glut of sequels that over-explained
04:13the origins of the original film's shadowy killer, known only as Billy, who was played by numerous cast
04:19and crew members during production. The film's success nevertheless left many curious about Billy's
04:24past, given that Black Christmas doesn't reveal anything about Billy's identity or motivations for
04:29going on a murderous rampage. This was entirely intentional on the part of the director, Bob Clark,
04:34and writer Roy Moore, who felt that it was scarier to make Billy something of a blank canvas onto which
04:39the audience can project their own feelings and fears. Though the maligned 2006 remake does include
04:45a backstory for Billy, revealing him to be a victim of an abusive childhood, this hasn't demystified the
04:50original incarnation, whose past and nature still remain a mystery. Given that Clark passed away in 2007
04:57and Moore is still keeping quiet about Billy, it's safe to say that he's going to remain an
05:01unknowable cipher forevermore.
05:04Number 6. What does the baby look like? Rosemary's Baby
05:07Rosemary's Baby concludes in unforgettably terrifying fashion when Rosemary meets her son Adrian for the
05:14first time, only to discover that the father is in fact Satan himself. Upon gazing at her child,
05:20Rosemary asks what's wrong with his eyes, to which the members of the coven remark that he has his
05:25father's eyes, before commenting vaguely upon the nature of his hands and feet. But we never actually
05:30see Adrian for ourselves in the film, leaving viewers to ponder for themselves what the Antichrist
05:36looks like. From what's said, we can certainly deduce that the boy has cat-like eyes, because our brief
05:42glimpse of Satan earlier in the film showed him having the very same. And as for his hands and feet,
05:47well, it's reasonable to assume that they're cloven hooves.
05:50Ira Levin's original book more explicitly describes the baby's appearance, including horns,
05:55a tail, and piercing yellow eyes. And though the film is certainly a faithful adaptation of the text,
06:00it also doesn't mean that Levin's account is one-to-one to the movie. And for his part,
06:05in the 50-plus years since Rosemary's Baby's release, filmmaker Roman Polanski hasn't said one
06:10word about what the baby truly looks like. Given that he's 90 years old and has other things to deal
06:16with, it's pretty unlikely he'll ever chime in on it.
06:195. Was Teddy sane at the end? Shutter Island
06:23The ending of Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island has been fiercely discussed,
06:27with many concluding that Andrew Laidus was indeed sane in the film's final moments,
06:32but faked a regression so that he would be lobotomized and not have to live with the
06:36knowledge of murdering his wife after she drowned their three children. Both Scorsese and
06:40screenwriter Leta Kalagridis have been cagey about ever affirming whether or not Andrew was
06:46indeed sane at the end. And it absolutely behooves them to be this way, because why ruin everyone's
06:51fun and sew up the mystery for good? Intriguingly, Dennis Lehane, the author of the original novel,
06:57firmly believes that Andrew had lost his mind at the end. And the moment he asks,
07:01is it better to live as a monster or to die as a good man, is merely a momentary flash of sanity.
07:07Lehane doesn't believe that Andrew was suicidal enough to have himself lobotomized,
07:11but given that Lehane didn't write the movie script himself, his views on the matter are
07:15hardly objective gospel. 4. How did Martin make the family sick?
07:20The killing of a sacred deer
07:21Psychological horror The Killing of a Sacred Deer follows heart surgeon Stephen Murphy,
07:27who is effectively cursed by Martin, the son of a man who died on his operating table.
07:32Martin informs Stephen that he needs to kill either his wife, son or daughter,
07:36within a matter of days, or they'll all succumb to an illness that will make them eventually bleed
07:40from the eyes and die. At the film's end, as his family's condition worsens, Stephen finally gives
07:46in and indeed shoots his son dead, and lifts the curse and returns his remaining family to good health,
07:51just as Martin said it would. But the film concludes without ever explaining how Martin
07:56is able to do this. We don't see any outwardly supernatural shenanigans throughout the film,
08:01and there's no particular hint that Martin is anything but a flesh and blood human being.
08:05But with that in mind, how did it all happen? Many might argue that considering the nature
08:09of the phenomenon is rather missing the point, but all the same, the curiosity is totally understandable.
08:15If you try to unravel the story in a grounded manner, and consider that Martin might have been
08:19using biological agents to poison the family, you're going to lose yourself down a highly contrived
08:25rabbit hole. It's only important that Martin has the power and the awful dilemma this creates for Stephen.
08:30That's the dramatic meat of the movie. And clearly, there was no interest in exploring
08:34the practical mechanics beyond this.
08:373. Where did Jean Jacket come from? Nope
08:40Jordan Peele's Nope offers up a fantastically unique riff on a superficially familiar alien
08:46invasion scenario, though provides virtually no exterior context for the presence of this
08:51focal UFO nicknamed Jean Jacket. First and foremost, we're left with no indication of where Jean
08:56Jacket came from. Are they from outer space, or have they always resided in the clouds of Earth?
09:01Though many fans initially believed that the film's title was a sly acronym for
09:05Not of Planet Earth, Peele ultimately confirmed that this wasn't his intent,
09:09and despite discussing the movie at length over the last year plus,
09:13has refused to reveal Jean Jacket's origins.
09:16Caltech professor John Debiri, who assisted Peele with Jean Jacket's design,
09:20implied in interviews that he felt the creature was otherworldly in origin due to its unconventional
09:25biology compared to all known creatures on Earth. Peele also called Nope an alien movie in
09:30interviews, though on the other hand, the film's VFX supervisor felt that Peele had conceived
09:34Jean Jacket as a terrestrial entity, which has resided on Earth since potentially forever.
09:39Neither of these collaborators have the authority to say one way or another where Jean Jacket came
09:44from, however, so without Peele being forthcoming on the matter, it's destined to remain a secret for
09:49the ages. Number 2. What did Anna whisper? Martyrs.
09:54Unforgettable French horror film Martyrs concludes with protagonist Anna being flayed
09:59alive by a secret society of individuals who believe that torturing young women will make
10:03them enter a euphoric state and see a window into the afterlife. After Anna apparently enters such a
10:08state, the leader of the group, known only as Mademoiselle, arrives and Anna whispers something
10:13in her ear, presumed to be an account of what she saw when she became a martyr.
10:17In the next scene, however, Mademoiselle asks her assistant if he can imagine what comes
10:22after death, and when he says no, she tells him, keep doubting, before shooting herself
10:26in the face. The mystery of what Anna said to Mademoiselle has agonised fans of the film
10:31for the last 15 years. There are two obvious possibilities. Death leads to nothing and the
10:36secret society's experiments have basically been a waste of time, or there's something so
10:40amazing waiting beyond that Mademoiselle couldn't wait any longer to go there and swiftly took her
10:45own life. But the filmmaker has kept his lips sealed ever since Marta's release, and it's a
10:49smart move, ensuring that the film has remained a consistent talking point in the horror fandom
10:54ever since.
10:561. What does it all mean? Bo is Afraid
10:59Ari Aster's Bo is Afraid is categorically a not-for-everyone movie, but whether you love it,
11:05hate it, or fall somewhere in between, it's fair to say that Aster does a stellar job of keeping the
11:10reality of the situation teetering on an ambiguous razor's edge. Are the increasingly surreal sights
11:15Bo encounters, like most disturbingly a giant penis monster hanging out in the attic of his family
11:21estate, to be taken at face value, or are they imagined in his anxiety-riddled brain? Or is it
11:26a little from column A and a little from column B? Aster has made it clear in interviews that he
11:31doesn't have much interest in shedding any light on the matter, beyond affirming that the film's
11:36central theme is guilt, something most anyone watching could surely pick up on. And honestly,
11:41it's just as well that Aster would prefer Bo is Afraid to live on as a gorgeous, hilarious,
11:45dream-like mess of a movie, rather than demystify it and ruin everyone's fun.